Lithium and the environment? Nevada can have both | Pat Hickey Pat Hickey View Comments "Memo from the Middle" is an opinion column written by RGJ columnist Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada Legislature from 1996 to 2016. Samuel Clemens, before he became Mark Twain, tried his hand at mining in Nevada; “Well, I didn’t have luck in the mining fields; I soon discovered a silver mine weren’t nothin’ but a hole in the ground with a fool at the bottom, and a liar at the top.” Something of an historical example of a “catch-22” — that paradoxical situation where someone is trapped in two seemingly contradictory conditions. For instance; to get a job, you need to have work experience. But, to get that work experience, you need to have had a job.